Our hearts are broken!

The first I saw of today's horror was an alert on FaceBook from the Chattanooga Times Free Press that there had been a shooting at the River Park. 

I didn’t turn on the TV or know anything else until FJ called me from Nashville about 1 p.m. to ask what was happening here. Then I turned on the TV.

The shootings were at two locations - a recruiting office on and a Marine/Naval Reserve Center. One of these locations is about five miles from us - just across the Tennessee River. It's where John goes to walk on the River Walk. There were four Marines killed, plus the shooter. There were no fatalities at the first site. The second one is on a major street, about a mile from the main police station. This is why the police response was so fast. One police officer and two others were wounded, one critically.

As information emerged over the day, we found out that the shooter grew up in Chattanooga and lived with his family in this general area - a nice neighborhood where several of our friends live.

This is certainly not anything we'd expect anywhere, much less in our quiet city, or literally in our neighborhood. Of course, there's been nothing else on our local stations all day.

To quote our governor, “Chattanooga is a great city, with a broken heart.”